1745 Senate of the Lakes election/IRL

The membership of the Order of the Holy Lakes will elect the Senate of the Lakes in June 2024. The new Senate will sit for another 12 IRL months (12 Norton years).

If one of your characters is elected to the Senate, I will invite you to the Senate discord channel where decisions are made.

Feel free to ask Ric any questions you may have!

Terminology

• Elector: An adult character (who will turn 18, or is older, during the 1745 Norton year (i.e. June, 2025).
• List: Also known as faction, is the name used for political party competing in the Senate election.
• Voter: The real-life person controlling an elector (or several electors)
• Order of the Holy Lakes: A hereditary chivalric order. Its members elect the Senate.
• Senate of the Lakes: The collective head of state, upper legislative assembly and Supreme Court of Hurmu.

Timeline

All deadlines pass when the last time-zone on Earth has passed the time.

• 31 May 2025: Last day for people to be registered as members of the Order of the Holy Lakes – "last day" for purposes of assigning electors in this election
• 1–10 June 2025: The list of electors is finalised. No new names can be inscribed.
  • Electors must be admitted members to the Order of the Holy Lakes, or currently married or widowed (unless remarried outside the order) to a member, or descended from a member by blood or legal adoption.
  • Moreover, each elector must have their name and age listed in the List of living members of the Order of the Holy Lakes. Without age, electors cannot vote, unless by other means verified to be of voting age.
  • Corrections may be done to the list of electors at this stage (e.g. if someone should be inscribed but isn't, or vice versa, for example in event of the death of a character)
• 11 June 2025: Faction/Lists/Referendums to be set.
  • If you wish to have a list competing in the elections, the list should be registered by this date. Registration occurs by editing the election article and adding the name of the list (including creating a wiki article outlining a simple programme for the list), or by informing Ric.
  • Lists need to have published their candidates in ranked order by this date.
  • If you wish for a question to be posed to the membership of the Order of the Holy Lakes, you should DM Ric (on discord or hub.mn/forum) the question, or add it to the Referendum Question List on the main election page. Any question posed, unless too silly, will be asked to the membership in the referendum, if asked before 17 June 2025.
• 12–19 June 2025: ELECTION Real-life members of the Order will vote through a link that Ric will provide them (alternatively, people may vote by telling Ric in private message how their electors vote). Voting by PM is also acceptable. Ric will also give receipts that votes have been received and are in good form.
• 20 June 2025: Senate results are announced.
• 20–25 June 2025: Results can be challenged by appealing to the outgoing Senate (sitting until the new Senate is inaugurated).
• 25 June 2025: The Senate will consider any appeals to the results. If no appeals are considered, then the Thirteenth Senate will be inaugurated on the first Norton day of the first Norton month following the resolution of receipt of the results by the Senate, or on the first day of the first Norton day of the next Norton year (1746/July 2025), whichever happens latest.

Voting

Voting occurs either

• through a link Ric provides, or
• through a personal message to Ric indicating how the electors in question vote

Following the completion of voting for each RL voter, Ric will provide a receipt indicating whether or not the votes are in good form. If found in good form, all is fine. If not found in good form, Ric will tell what is wrong and invite the voter to vote again.

Voting will be conducted until the end of 26 June anywhere on Earth, but may be concluded sooner if all electors have voted.

If you have voted, and you haven't received a receipt of your votes having been accepted, please contact Ric!

Apportionment

Fourteen seats are up for grabs.

In this election, we will try a new method of voting.

Half of all votes will be apportioned like in the previous elections (one IC elector = 1 vote), but the other half ("second round of counting") of the votes will be apportioned by how the RL people vote (excepting those who already control a permanent seat).

Then all votes will be counted....

Lists will be apportioned seats by way of a simple formula: Q = 14v / T; in other words the number of seats available (14) multiplied by the number of votes (v) for the list, and then divided by the total number of the votes cast. From this equation, we will receive a quotient (Q). For example, if the quotient is 3.67, it means that the list will be guaranteed 3 seats. After all lists have been counted and given guaranteed seats this way, the number of guaranteed seats are added, and then subtracted from the whole number (14). The resulting difference is the number of seats left to be allocated. For example, say that there are 4 more seats to allocate, then the 4 lists with the highest decimals (when ordered) will be given an extra seat.

A party can however only be assigned as many seats as it has persons on its list. Any vacant seats will be redistributed among the other parties so that the Senate will always have 14 members.